Tag Archives: election

Thought I would quickly run down the weeks events here in the lower North Island, at least my events for the last few days anyway. I’ll work backwards just because I can.

Lastnight I attended an NZEI meeting in Carterton with Amy. I spoke as the education spokesperson. I think it went well for us given that nearly everyone in the small (40ish) crowd had at one time or another, worked with her father (he’s a primary teacher). THe ACT guy talked at length about the need to invest more in education but not once did he say “Voucher”. I think he was pandering to the crowd. The National candidate (current sitting MP John Hayes) continued in his apparent continual bad mood. There seems to be a lot of petty sniping in the Wairarapa which appears missing in Wellington Central. I helped the Green Candidate with his policy as he didn’t know the answer for a question, so I told him what their position was.

Wednesday morning started in Wellington where I drove around the hutt valley putting up the last of my signs. Finally the are all up, Yay!

Tuesday:
I started Tuesday by getting stuck in Wellington traffic and arriving late for my short radio interview with the alternative station “radio active”. they were good. The host had recieved a pamphlet and commented on our policies. he gave me a good opportunity to put our case.

Then I was photographed by John. He is following the Wellington Central campaign with a view to having a photographic exhibition in March of next year. There will also be a book. He shows up at all the meetings and has taken photos of nearly everyone.

The afternoon of Tuesday was spent putting the signs in Wellington back up. I found a few in the trees. One sight looked like a bomb had hit it. All the signs were knocked down, billboards vandalised.I put our sign up. It was a lone sign in a sea of carnage.

Tuesday night was the meeting at St Anne at Ward. It went well. I spoke, answered a few questions. Al the independed arrived again and this time he spoke very well. He still said he was a drug addict and that he had been in jail for aggravated robbery. This time though he was far more efficent in his delivery. Thankfully he spoke after me as there is no way I could have followed him. He had the crowd laughing. Poor David Somerset, the Prog, he had to follow him. David did, though start and finish with poems. His finishing poem was about the United Future party and was quite good but I would not have siad such things in a church. I did get the chance to talk about public funding of private schools so I got stuck in there, briefly.

Don Franks gave an excellent speech on why Jesus (we were in a church) would like the Worker’s Party.

Everyone else was much of a muchness. The chairperson was feeling sorry for us candidates in the back row so he asked the Kiwi party candidate about their housing policy, a question she couldn’t answer but Stephen Franks answered for her. The only other point worth mentioning is that some sod from the Labour party asked the Kiwi party candidate a totally inappropriate question. The whole crowd turned on him and put him in his place which was good to see. While I don’t agree with her policies there was no need for that nonsense.

Monday:

Monday saw me at two meetings.
One in Masterton, just an info meeting about rules etc.

One in Wellington in Wadestown. I arrived early and thought I would pamphlet the surrounding streets only to find that 99% of their letterboxes have “no junk mail” signs. I had decided early on that I wouldn’t put pamphlets in those letterboxes as a way of making our pamphlets go further. So well done Wadestown for being so environmentally conscious.

This meeting also went well. I tried my new speech about how living in poverty means living in fear and how the Alliance in needed to put an end to that. It seemed to work. This was the meeting where we first met both Al the independed and the Republican candidate. I’ve already spoken about Al. The republican was very nervous and spoke about their polices. I hope to see him at another meeting before the end of the campaign.

Again most of the questions were focused at the two main candidates. One woman asked Stephen Franks to explain a comment he had made a while ago about “Whinging Christians and something or other gays” He promptly turned on her saying that that was the 5th time the Labour party had bought that up at a meeting. He then had to apologise to her when he discovered that she had nothing to do with the Labour party and had heard soemthing about it and just wanted him to explain. He did feel a bit sheepish.

I did get a question about NCEA. Actually it was a question to who ever wanted to answer so I jumped in.

So that’s been my week.
Jocelyn and some supporters have been out pamphleting and Wellington has almost run out of pamphlets. I’m sending over some spares from Wairarapa.

Kelly and her team are getting stuck into pamphleting her areas. Keep up the good work guys.

So that’s been my week, how are yours going?
Remember to vote.
Richard

Below are the Alliance tax tables. I felt it was time to remind people that there are other alternatives out there to the two big parties. The Alliance is the only one of the smaller parties to cost out their policies. We know where evert dollar comes from and where every dollar goes. If you factor in the fact that under an Alliance government there would be no school fees, no health care fees, no prescriptions, no student loans to repay, and no tertiary fees (no bonding either) you can clearly see how you will wind up with more money in your own back pocket. If you want a more detailed account of our tax programme and our budget, check out the website, http://www.alliance.org.nz

INCOME

MARGINAL TAX %

INCOME

TOTAL TAX %

TOTAL MAX $

TOTAL DIFFERENCE

0 – 10,000

nil

10,000

nill

nil

Up To $1,530

10 – 20,000

24

20,000

12.00

2,400

841,000 kiwis will average $1,400 less tax

20 – 30,000

26

30,000

16.67

5,000

372,000 kiwis will average $984 less tax

30 – 40,000

30

40,000

20.00

8,000

339,000 kiwis will average $428 less tax

40 – 50,000

40

50,000

24.00

12,000

314,000 kiwis will average $232 more tax

50 – 60,000

42

60,000

27.00

16,200

225,000 kiwis will average $1,009 more tax

60 – 70,000

46

70,000

29.71

20,800

146,000 kiwis will average $1,794 more tax

70 – 100,000

50

100,000

35.80

35,800

205,000 kiwis will average $4,943 more tax

100,000+

54

200,000

44.90

89,800

138,000 kiwis will average $16,717 more tax

No tax on the first $10,000 means that all on that income will keep the $1530 they pay at present; super and benefits will be adjusted to give those receiving them the full value of our tax cuts plus some extra for married couples